Recently I had the pleasure of addressing Open Data Fest III in Sacramento, CA an awesome gathering of data contributors and enthusiasts out west that are to advancing the agenda of using the state’s data for positive impacts. California has…

California is launching a new open data portal that details the state’s outstanding $1.5 trillion in debt. The site will allow residents to track proposed and issued debt, cost of issuance, and bond and tax election results. The portal is…

With the release of nine reports, the California Department of Motor Vehicles has created what is likely the first public data set on driverless car crashes in the U.S. The DMV released all its reports on autonomous vehicle (AV) crashes on…

VICE News is closely watching policing in America. Check out the Officer Involved blog here. California made public a trove of data on Wednesday that shows striking racial imbalances in the state’s justice system, particularly regarding disproportionate rates of black people being…

The first fruits of Google’s inaugural Government Innovation Lab are nearly ripe. In California’s Central Valley, Kern County has announced two prototypes envisioned as remedies for a number of civic challenges. The first prototype is what officials call a Virtual…

In 2005, California instituted a pilot program called ReadyReturn in which 50,000 taxpayers received an already-completed state tax return. The state compiled the returns based on data it already had from employers and banks. A survey of ReadyReturn participants found…

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Efforts to bring open data into, well, the open have touched off widespread discussion as to just where the use of the information is headed, and whether there is a need for expanded oversight and state legislation.…

Data analysis and visualizations are the most useful end products as BI professionals and even data scientists. They give actionable insights to the end user. With all the data initiatives and people working with it, there are now a lot of examples of government open…

While California may be home to some of the most aggressively forward-thinking tech companies in the world, that enthusiasm for innovation hasn’t carried over to the public sector. State and local governments have been frustratingly slow to make public data…